They were startled by the sudden appearance on their radar of 100-150 Roxolan spaceships. At first the crew thought it was a malfunction of their equipment but the sighting was confirmed by Houston Control. Radio communications were attempted using English, Russian, Mandarin, Japanese, French, German, Spanish and even Latin. All transmissions were ignored. After a short period, the Roxolan fleet departed at extreme acceleration toward Earth, leaving the Ares III in its long, slow orbit to Mars.